Andy Millne

I don't have many but I have emailed a few I have. If there are any in the Gallery you would like to use please contact the authors via PM.

Great stuff canny lass, thanks for sharing. I'm thinking A.N. could well be Anglo Norman influence given the period.

Rumour has it there's a new shop coming imminently to the Front Street that isn't a hairdressers, solicitors, estate agents or florists.

Hi Scorpio, Good luck with your search whatever you decide. The conservation area has been a contentious subject ever since it was introduced and I have mixed feelings. It probably has had a detrimental affect on some buildings it was introduced to protect but at the same time I'm very glad that there is not a free for all on replacement of historic features. I recently had to make similar repairs to sash windows in the conservation area and although initially I thought that putting PVC replacements in would have been a good choice to have I now very much prefer having the repaired originals. It is relatively straightforward to add brush pile draught proofing strips at the same time and the cost doesn't have to be as much as you think. A fully sealed uPVC unit is often not suitable with regard to ventilation needed for the design of the building and the insulation value difference once you have draught proofed and added a well fitting heavy curtain perhaps isn't as much as people realise. Well insulated internal shutters are also an option as well as secondary glazing. I can pass on details of the local company that did my repairs on request.if you do decide to go this route. It's before my time but I'm almost certain the council offices were built before the conservation area was introduced. The historic building it replaced has a few topics on this site although its name escapes me. Yes this is my main opposition to the conservation area strategy. Common sense is often thrown out of the window and some buildings are starting to fall down as a result. The old school building has been mentioned in this topic and is a good example of where a number of proposals were put forward by a developer. Some of these proposals would still have meant a fairly major change to the character of the building but much of it was to be preserved. In the end because all proposals were rejected by the local planning authority at an early stage it went to appeal. An expensive legal battle eventually led to the plans with the least amount of the original building being preserved being accepted and unfortunately the momentum taken out of the whole process. So now all that is happening is the building is continuing to fall down. If this is the building I'm thinking of it is not in the grounds of Laird's House, it is behind 40c and 40d Front Street West (currently the beauty salon and hairdressers). Yes, this confuses me too. There are a number of properties that have had uPVC windows fitted inside the conservation area since it was introduced. When mine were repaired I was surprised by how much is salvageable. The cills are the first to go but often the sashes themselves can be stripped repaired and repainted. A few of the bottom rails of the lower sashes had rotten and were replaced. New cords were fitted and draught seals added.

This is a great way of looking at it. Everything in the past was once an innovation. It doesn't have to be heavy industry or major retail and speaking as a resident I wouldn't want them anyway. All it needs is a solid foundation of light industry and independent retail. We're not talking about Major shopping centres or huge industrial estates, what is needed are the facilities to serve the town without people having to travel great distances to them. The reason this is not possible in my opinion is due to the one size fits all town and city policies in place that discourage the innovation you alluded to. Things like setting business rates at a national level based on floor area is crazy. It is telling when even a local newsagent providing essential services and with no immediate competition is thinking of selling up because these costs are no longer in touch with reality. Instead of addressing these concerns however, we decide it is OK to subsidise other areas not even within our own borders.

I hope we're back onto discussing the old school now.

lmao.

Of course.

The current owner has already invested many thousands only to be met with ever increasing legal costs in the name of conserving something that has little to no real architectural merit. I recognise that it may have sentimental value for some but times move on. The property was vacant for quite some time beforehand and there was plenty of opportunity to conserve it and create "something nice" if it had been viable. You can certainly object to proposed developments but you can't then complain when the proposed development is stalled. You can't have it both ways.

Happy birthday Merc.

Yes it is rather strange that a political party would want to interact with a community they are supposed to be representing isn't it?

The terms for advertising are clearly stated in the site announcements forum. http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/4415-your-ad-for-free/ The facility is available for all political parties standing in the Bedlington area that have the sense to request it.

It was entirely successful engaging your attention merc, the discussion it engaged also seems to have cemented your decision to vote UKIP. Just saying Personally I'd be much more inclined to vote for a party where the message comes direct and not filtered by legal and marketing departments (if I agree with the message of course)

When you're moving large amounts of data there is a need, trust me There will be for quite some time and if anything increasingly so as more devices become internet connected and "over IP" media becomes more common. I can't imagine the trouble/cost I would have had yesterday transferring a 1TB database on a 4g connection.

Could these questions ( not that specific one of course ) be answered via a FOI request? At least then an answer or reasons for refusal must be given

The draft heads of terms as a guide state "A fair market rent" in other words whatever the two parties can agree on based on similar rents paid for other properties.

What is the letter above in relation to please Malcolm? The perceived barriers to entry are certainly a problem for new businesses. Rents, rates, insurance, utility bills, accounting and legal in reality aren't too complex but they are all certainly disincentives to trying stuff and seeing what sticks.

Yes they will, and do. If you're receiving resistance in negotiation there could be a number of reasons for this. Negotiation on price may not be something the landlord is willing to do, there are other things other than price however. You may also be speaking to the wrong person, agents can be bad at communicating offers. Also, the business or offer may not be a good fit for the owner's long term plans. My main point is the sticker price is very rarely the final price for anything and by making blanket statements such as the rents are extreme or landlords are unwilling to negotiate it's not a very good advert for the town. I'm also not saying there aren't some landlords with unrealistic expectations, clearly from your experience this may have been the case in at least a couple of instances. This is not a universal truth though. It does sound like there are lots of small businesses individuals that need a leg up on their way to high street premises which is part of the reason I raised the idea of small office space units in the other thread. I'll try and get the relevant posts merged.

This is a gross generalisation. Yes, there are some pretty optimistic figures quoted from some as pointed out above but anybody with an ounce of commercial sense would negotiate on these and put forward the business case for a lower rent. If somebody was to offer a full asking rent with no negotiation whatsoever then I suspect any landlord would rather not want this tenant. There are legal fees and other costs associated with all new tenancies after all. A prospective tenant that can't even negotiate on one of their fundamental costs probably won't stay in business longer than 6 months. This seems like a good way of filtering out the non viable businesses to me. For reasons of balance and after a declaration of interest... http://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/property-44354767.html

The best use for the building imo would be to split it up into a few dozen incubator style offices/meeting spaces with reception services. I expect these would be quite tempting to the likes of Merc working from home, it would create activity in the town centre and some may grow to fill the more visible high street retail premises over time. There would be lots of networking opportunities and a lot of the hassles many start ups face would be eliminated. There a couple of ways of looking at our location, some see it as a downside but our town is centrally located between 4 larger towns which could be a huge advantage if treated correctly.

It's a DNS issue, might take a couple of hours or so to propagate to your service provider.

Welcome to the site Seamus.

We can merge in your old posts to this account if you would like Christopher. Or you can continue with a separate account, entirely up to you. Welcome back.

Welcome Mark, enjoy the site. A quick search here gives a couple of possibly relevant results; http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/4381-logan-markwell-families-grant-bottoms-middleton/?hl=bottoms http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/1394-logan-bottoms/?hl=bottoms

This topic was split from http://www.bedlington.co.uk/community/topic/5593-reston-nee-metcalfe/